Proper translation always requires an understanding of the purpose or intent of the translation. If an address is to actually be used for sending mail, then most elements of the address should be transliterated, e.g. ул. (улица) becomes ul. (ulitsa).

Examples of translated addresses

Here are some examples that illustrate the process of translating addresses from Russian to English.

Russian address

Translated address

Россия, 105066, г.Москва
ул. Старая Басманная
д.16 стр. 1а(Note: In this address ‘стр.’ is short for ‘строение’ (building, structure). This implies that are multiple buildings with a single street number. This address is specifically for building 1a.)

ul. Staraya Basmannaya, d. 16, str. 1a
Moscow
Russia
105066

127994, Москва,
ул. Малая Дмитровка, 3/10.(Note: a slash ‘/’ in an address may indicate that the address is at an intersection. The first number, in this case 3, is the street number for the given street, in this case ‘Malaya Dmitrovka’. The second number, in this case 10, is for the cross street.)

ul. Malaya Dmitrovka, 3/10
Moscow
127994

Санкт Петербург
Василеостровский район, квартал 1, корп.52

kvartal 1, korp. 52
Saint Petersburg
Vasileostrovsky rayon

ул. Ленина, 23-2-239(Note: A dash can be used to separate a street number from a building number and an apartment number. In this case the street number is 23, the building number is 2, and the apartment number is 239.)

If the purpose of the translation is merely to help a foreigner understand the parts of the address, then translating the elements of the address is appropriate and changing their order is not necessary, e.g. the original example provided becomes

Russia, 105066, Moscow
16 Staraya Basmannaya Street, bldg. 1а

Common Russian postal terminology

Here are words and abbreviations you may encounter when translating addresses from Russian to English:

Russian term (and abbreviations)

English term (meaning and transliterations)

(почтовый) абонентский ящик, а/я

post office box, P.O Box: a/ya

бульвар, бульв., буль., бул., б-р

boulevard: bulvar, bul.

город, г.

city: gorod, g.

двор, дв.

yard, courtyard: dvor, dv.

деревня, дер., д.

village: derevnya, der., d.

дом, д.

house, block of apartments/flats: dom, d.

кабинет, каб., к-т, к.

office, room: kabinet, kab.

квартал, кварт. кв., кв-л

quarter, area, block: kvartal, kvart., kv.

квартира, кварт., кв., квр

apartment, flat: kvartira, kv.

корпус, корп., кор.

building: korpus, korp. kor.

край, кр.

territory: krai

линия, лин.

line: liniya, lin.

литера, лит.

letter (i.e. of a building): litera, lit.

микрорайон, мкр-н, мкр., мкрн, м/н, м-н, м/р-н, мрн., м-р

neighborhood, microdistrict: mikrorajon

мост, м.

bridge: most, m.

набережная, наб.

embankment: naberezhnaya, nab.

область, обл.

region: oblast, obl.

остров, о., о-в

island: ostrov, o.

офис, оф.

office: ofis, of.

переулок, пер., п., п-к

lane: pereulok, per., p.

площадь, пл., п.

square: ploshchad, pl., p.

помещение, пом.

room, premises: pomeshhenie, pom.

посёлок, пос., п.

town: posyolok, pos., p.

проезд, пр., пр-д

drive: proezd, pr.

проспект, просп., пр-т

avenue: prosekt, prosp.

район, р., р-он

district, region: rayon, r.

строение, стр.

structure, building: stroenie, str.

тупик, туп.

cul-de-sac: tupik, tup.

улица, ул.

street: ulitsa, ul.

шоссе, ш.

highway: shosse, sh.

этаж, эт.

floor: etazh, et.

There are some other considerations for Russian addresses mentioned on Wikipedia.

Please let me know if you were not able to find the postal term you were looking for—or if you have comments or corrections!

A few days ago I was reading a book about the solar system to my children. We learned that the distance to the moon is about 225,000 miles. It struck me that my car, which has 224,006 miles on the odometer, has almost covered that distance. That number is also significant to me, because it is (approximately) how many words I’ve been paid to translate from Russian into English in the past four months. I’ve averaged 2,000 words a day for four months—not bad!

Last Wednesday I began teaching English at the Russian Community Center in Redmond, Washington. The class is free and meets each week at 7:00pm on Wednesday. Please join us!

I emphasized to the students that they would need to devote significant time outside of our class in order to make progress with the language. They would need to find a native English-speaking friend to help them. Many felt that this would be difficult. As an alternative that does not require another human, I suggested that they make use of public domain books and audio books in order to get practice with reading. By listening to an audio recording of a story while following along, a student can correct mistakes in pronunciation, learn new vocabulary, and improve their reading skills.

As some people have expressed an interest, I’m also going to offer individual instruction in English (for Russians), either in-person or via Skype. If you are interested, contact me, and we can negotiate the details.

Can’t afford a personal Russian language coach? The “Interactive Dictation” (Интерактивный диктант) feature on www.gramota.ru may be the next best thing. It’s always available and is never in a bad mood. You can practice at your own pace, and—best of all—it’s free!

Here’s how it works. Once you go to the website, you’ll see a list of names of authors.

Each author’s name is followed by the name of one of his or her works. Pick one.

You’ll then see a passage of text sprinkled with yellow boxes.

Each yellow box is a test of your skills in Russian grammar or spelling. Click on a box to reveal a dropdown menu of punctuation or letter combinations. Choose one of the options for each yellow box.

Then click the “Check” (Проверить) button to see how you did.

Correct answers will be rendered green, and incorrect answers will be red.

That’s great, but there’s more! Not only do you get to see what you got wrong, you get to learn why! Click on each red box to see an explanation of the grammar or spelling rules that you broke.

I’ve come across a helpful translation tool called IntelliWebSearch that can accelerate your translation speed. It allows you to create keyboard shortcuts for repetitive web searches. For example, I’ve created a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+I) to automatically initiate an image search using whatever text is currently selected as the query string. The more time consuming alternative would be to copy the query string from your document, switch to your browser, navigate to the image search page, paste the query string, and hit enter. If you find yourself searching the web a lot during a translation job, this tool is for you! Kudos to the developer: Michael Farrell. There are dozens of preconfigured search engines and online dictionaries. You can tweak them as needed or add your own.

When converting a PDF file to a DOC/DOCX file for translation, you may end up with a bunch of “Optional Hyphens”—or as SDL Trados 2009 refers to them, “softbreakhyphens”. Academic publications are particularly affected. These symbols in your source text can trigger some annoying tag verification errors in Trados.

What’s so irritating? Beyond the useless tag verification errors, the hyphens can also confuse tools like Lingvo X3 and prevent matching within translation memories. There can literally be hundreds of these irritations in an article. There are no less than five (highlighted in yellow) in the abstract below.

They don’t go away, even after converting a PDF to DOC/DOCX.

Here’s a trick to quickly get rid of them before parsing the converted DOC/DOCX file with translation software such as SDL Trados.

Bring up the Find and Replace dialog. (CTRL+H)

For the “Find what” field, select “Optional Hyphen” from the Special drop down menu.